The problem with expectations

I learn a lot while I’m driving. This week in the space of an hour I almost got backed into by a woman determined to get out of a street ahead of me, got cut off by someone else and then had to climb into my car through the passenger door because a woman who parked next to me at the supermarket in her oversized SUV told me that there wasn’t an issue because she had parked “within the lines”.

You can gather from my tone that I was more than a little annoyed with all of this and spent quite some time silently fuming to myself about how rude people are today (I know what a cliché!). But eventually here’s what I realised: it wasn’t them that was causing the problem it was me. I expected these people to behave differently. I expected them to behave as I believed I would have. And so, when they didn’t live up to my expectations, I got mad.

 But here’s the thing. I didn’t know what they were thinking. I didn’t know what kind of day they were having or why they were doing what they were doing. I didn’t know their back story. I simply looked at them through my lens of appropriate behaviour and found them wanting.

 The same thing happens at work when people don’t live up to our expectations. In judging others by our standards, we fail to understand what’s going on for them. We fail to see the innocence in what they are doing. And the bad news – at the very least we waste time and energy feeling out of sorts and at worst we bring their perceived shortcomings to their attention in a less than constructive manner.

 So next time you’re feeling ever so slightly churlish because someone doesn’t behave as you expect them to, maybe start by giving them the benefit of the doubt and assume innocence? I suspect both you, me and they will feel better as a result.